Last week Mary Selby posted a great review of the movie “To Save a Life,” addressing the terrible tragedy of teen suicide. Shortly after reading her article, I learned of a young woman in Massachusetts who had taken her own life. Though we may never know all the reasons for her grievous decision what is undisputed is that Phoebe Prince was suffering torment on a daily basis from relentless bullying.
Phoebe Prince was a beautiful, young, fifteen-year-old girl. She was a daughter, a sister, and a friend. Having come from Ireland only last year she was a recent immigrant to the United States, a resident of Massachusetts, and a student at South Hadley High. Friends shared that Phoebe was the victim of bullying that went beyond the hallways at school and followed her into her home and onto her computer and phone through Facebook and text messaging. This new form of intimidation has been termed Cyberbullying and is becoming more and more frequent.
Herbert Nieberg, associate professor of criminal justice at Mitchell College in Connecticut and a psychologist who specializes in adolescents told ABC News:
Kids go on to Facebook because they get a wider audience than in the hallway. Everybody likes to watch the action. Why do three girls on Long Island beat up another young woman and put it on YouTube? They vicariously enjoy identifying with the aggressor.
Internet safety expert and privacy lawyer Parry Aftab told “Good Morning America” that this type of bullying amounts to torture for some kids.
The schoolyard bullies beat you up and then go home, The cyberbullies beat you up at home, at grandma’s house, where ever you’re connected to technology.
Kevin Cullen of The Boston Globe reported that Phoebe Prince was one of the targets of South Hadley’s notorious Mean Girls. He added that these Mean Girls not only harassed Phoebe verbally and in print while she was living but went on to mock and defame her in death posting disparaging remarks about Phoebe on her Facebook memorial page.
Who does such a thing? Where is the remorse?
The elements that drove this fifteen-year-old to suicide and the unthinkable slander she received after her untimely death is evil in a very real sense. Let me be careful here. I am not saying that those individuals who bullied this young girl are responsible for her death. It is impossible to determine all of the factors involved.
But what becomes patently clear through the course of this story is that at least some of those who tormented Phoebe Prince displayed utter contempt for her in life and death. This is a problem that needs to be addressed.
The dangerous myth of the 20th century is that people are good and getting better. It’s a terrible lie. The most chilling horrors of the 20th century can be traced to this deception. The biblical worldview says quite the opposite that we had the choice to be good but chose not to be.
In his book The People of the Lie, author M. Scott Peck, M.D. (The Road Less Traveled) writes of dealing with the problem of evil.
Be careful – full of care.
Evil people are easy to hate. But remember Saint Augustine’s advice to hate the sin but love the sinner. Remember when you recognize an evil person that truly,“There but for the grace of God go I.”
In labeling certain human beings as evil, I am making an obviously severely critical judgment. My Lord said, “Judge not, that ye be not judged.” By this statement – so often quoted out of context – Jesus did not mean we should never judge our neighbor. For he went on to say, “Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the [speck] out of thy brother’s eye.” What he meant was that we should judge others only with great care, and that such carefulness begins with self-judgment.
…The battle to heal human evil always begins at home. And self-purification will always be our greatest weapon.
While I don’t hold to Peck’s entire philosophy I appreciate his attempts here to address the problem of evil. We must address our own sin. Still as a Christian I realize that self-purification is impossible. We are not in and of ourselves good, yet we have tried to self-help ourselves and our world into goodness. We have countless books, seminars and counseling sessions to prove it, but these things are void of power without the grace and love of Jesus. The reality is we cannot achieve goodness or overcome evil on our own.
If we desire to see the evil in us and around us stamped out there does need to be purification, but our role in the process is one of surrender. The cleansing process occurs when we acknowledge our sin and come humbly to the cross of Jesus. It is only when we express our inability to free ourselves of a guilty conscience (or lack of) that we become truly free, cleansed by the blood of Jesus which covers over all of our failures and satisfies the penalty for our sin:
Let us draw near to God with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water. Hebrews 10:22
These words give me pause as I consider my first reaction to the story above. While justice must be served, and I champion holding any who may have contributed to Phoebe’s death accountable, I must be careful in my own judgment. Everything I have seen and heard surrounding this story makes me want to lash out and punish all of those who use their words and fists to bully others into fear or submission, but I run the risk of becoming that same bully with my own self-righteous words. So rather I am choosing to guard my tongue.
The phrase Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me is a nice idea, but what a ridiculous statement. I remember singing that like a nursery rhyme while bullies teased me and my brother on our way to school. But, the statement wasn’t true then, and it isn’t true now. Words can hurt. I still toss and turn over menacing words. They stick, they bury themselves inside of us, and they bring death of one sort or another.
With stories like Phoebe’s in the news could it be more evident how careful we must be in regard to our own speech with our children, our friends, and our acquaintances?
I pray for this heart-broken family who has lost a daughter and a sister. I pray that their hearts would not turn bitter with the evil they have encountered. I pray that they would find comfort and peace in the arms of Christ.
I pray for all those who had a hand in teasing or taunting Phoebe that they would come to their knees and agonize over their sin. I pray that they might ask forgiveness and find it through Jesus shed blood.
And I pray for each of us that we might consider more carefully the words we use on a daily basis. May we remember that our words can never return from where they came. Words will either encourage and promote or discourage and destroy.
Today’s installment from the latest Iowa Poll that The Des Moines Register commissioned asked Iowans polled what issues should the Iowa Legislature consider this year. For those of you who live outside of Iowa may not be aware, this year’s General Assembly has a shortened session this year in order to cut costs. This week is funnel week to see what bill will end up going to the floor to be debated on, and which ones will get killed in committee.
Again they are asking the wrong question. Before they asked whether or not the Iowa Supreme Court’s decision has impacted their life. Now they are asking whether or not the Iowa Legislature should spend their time on it.
62% of Iowans surveyed said it isn’t worth the Legislature’s time. The only issue offered that the majority said is worth their time was a ban on texting while driving with 72% saying it’s worth their time. Why is this?
Well, Senate Majority Leader Mike Gronstal has already said it won’t happen. Nobody thinks the votes are there to get it done. I personally don’t know of anybody holding out hope for a legislative vote this session. I know I’m not. Does that mean Iowans think it’s unimportant?
I don’t think so. Ask the right question, should Iowans be allowed to vote on a definition of marriage and the last poll that asked that the overwhelming majority said yes. But I’m sure that the Legislative Democrats will spin this to say they aren’t wasting their time.
"The majority party has successfully convinced people that that’s something that takes a lengthy period of time," Paulsen said. "There’s no reason it should have to take more than 30 minutes."
But when you have a shortened session, a budget shortfall problem, a clear public safety issue in front of the General Assembly, and the Democratic leadership who will stonewall any attempt to pass a ban.
What do you think people will say?
Perhaps I’m wrong. Maybe those of us who advocate for this have it wrong. I’d like to see Democrats prove me and many others wrong, let us vote. I think if it’s on the ballot we know what the outcome will be which is why we see the delay tactics. Since that isn’t likely to happen with the current makeup in the Iowa House and Senate I think we need to start seriously considering a Constitutional Convention and send the Iowa Supreme Court justices who are up for retention this year packing.
The most surprising feature (for critics, not supporters) is the make up of those who support this movement. The majority are those who identify themselves as being independent with 49%. Those who self-identify as Republicans make up 34% with those who identify themselves as Democrats making up 17%. That last number should not be dismissed.
Democrats around the country have disparaged the Tea Party demonstrations, generally dismissing its supporters as wing nuts. The Iowa Poll results in today’s Register might change that, at least in Iowa. It shows one-third of Iowans consider themselves supporters of the Tea Party movement, regardless of party affiliation. Only about a third of these are Republicans. And they seem very inclined to vote.
Republicans so far have given far more attention than Democrats to this rather amorphous collection of Iowans who seem to distrust the party establishment and seek to counter powerful interests that influence both sides of the aisle…
…Democrats, as the party in power, have an even more difficult case to make that they should stay in control. Ignoring or insulting the 31 percent of independents and 21 percent of Democrats who support the Tea Party will not save their jobs.
Some may what to be dismissive of the 17% number, but as far as statewide polls go this had a large sample size – with 805 being surveyed. Among this group, the Register notes an a definite anti-incumbent mood:
The poll suggests tea party supporters could benefit Republicans in November if the GOP can persuade voters its candidates will rein in spending.
Tea party supporters are more energized than the average likely Iowa voter. Three-quarters of the group’s supporters say they will definitely vote, about even with the 73 percent of Republicans who say the same, compared with 65 percent of Democrats and 59 percent of independents.
With an earlier poll that shows Iowa as being a center-right state, especially on fiscal matters, spells problems for Legislative Democrats and Governor Chet Culver as they struggle with a budget shortfall that many see is not just a result of decreasing revenue, but fiscal mismanagement and overspending.
Senator Tom Harkin wants to dismiss the Tea Party movement as a radical fringe group, “Unless the tea party starts to moderate its views a little bit and becomes more mainstream, they are going to continue to become a fringe, radical group.” But based on recent polling I think it is safe to say that Senator Harkin represents the fringe element.
Perhaps it will take a 2010 blowout for Harkin and the Iowa Democratic Party to realize it.
Tonight during the Super Bowl, CBS aired a Motorola Commercial with Megan Fox. I’ve embedded the commercial below, while it isn’t graphic it wouldn’t be appropriate to watch with kids in the room.
While it may be shocking, the practice of "sexting" – sending nude pictures via text message – is not unusual, especially for high schoolers around the country.
This week, three teenage girls who allegedly sent nude or semi-nude cell phone pictures of themselves, and three male classmates in a western Pennsylvania high school who received them, are charged with child pornography.
In October a Texas eighth-grader spent the night in a juvenile detention center after his football coach found a nude picture on his cell phone that a fellow student sent him.
Roughly 20 percent of teens admit to participating in "sexting," according to a nationwide survey (pdf) by the National Campaign to Support Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy.
"This is a serious felony. They could be facing many years in prison," CBS News legal analyst Lisa Bloom said of the six teens in Pennsylvania.
But, Bloom added, "What are we going to do, lock up 20 percent of America’s teens?"
The study says that 20% of teens overall have either sent or posted online nude or seminude pictures of video of themselves. With 11% of young teen girls (ages 13-16). Also 39% of all teens are sending sexually suggestive messages via text, email, and IM with 48% of all teens reporting receiving them. Houston we have a problem. So when Lisa Bloom asks, “what are we going to do, lock up 20% of American’s teens?”
No, but we don’t put commercials on your network that encourages the behavior either. Shame on Motorola for making this ad, shame on Megan Fox for participating it, and shame on CBS for airing it.
Also to all parents, if you don’t monitor your kids’ cell phone’s, iPods, PDAs, and computers what the heck is wrong with you?
The latest issue of People magazine has the Duggar family featured in its cover story. The Duggars, as you probably already know, are a large family also featured in a reality television show with Mom (Michelle), Dad (Jim Bob), and their now 19 children. The aforementioned magazine cover has a picture of Michelle and Jim Bob along with the Duggar family’s latest addition, Josie Brooklyn, born this past December via emergency C-section. Also on the cover is the copy “How Many Kids Are Too Many?”, and “The Duggars Under Fire”. At the bottom of the cover this explanation is given: “As their 19th child, Josie, fights for life, Michelle and Jim Bob Duggar say they might have more children- igniting a controversy over their supersize family”.
Actually, controversy about the Duggars long pre-dated the birth of baby Josie and any recent acknowledgment that there may be more little Duggars yet to come. Criticism of the Duggars goes back a few years, even before the time they came into the national spotlight in 2004 when their first special was aired on the Discovery channel.
The criticism directed at them runs the gamut: Their religious views, their environmental impact (the Duggars do, no doubt, produce a lot of CO2), the health risks they’ve taken, and their view that they have all the emotional and economic resources required to have 19 children (and maybe more).
They are said to be a part of the “Quiverfull” movement, a stream of doctrine and practice within evangelical Christianity that, among other things, emphasizes the great gift and blessing that children are. The movement takes its name from Psalm 127:3-5:
Lo, children are an heritage of the LORD: and the fruit of the womb is his reward. As arrows are in the hand of a mighty man; so are children of the youth. Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them: they shall not be ashamed, but they shall speak with the enemies in the gate.
There is much to be said positively for Quiverfull. They obviously possess a high regard for children, have a great emphasis on the family, and reject the modern day feminist dogma that says women can’t be fulfilled simply by being mothers and homemakers. They aren’t mere throwbacks to a 19th century social model, rather they stand as a living antithesis of what the world around them believes and does.
Yet, while Quiverfull is not a monolithic movement, it nonetheless has a number of tenants within it that are generally held, and may be seen as troubling even within the most conservative of evangelical circles. For example, the notion that “birth control” by any means in any circumstance is always wrong is something that many (most?) evangelicals cannot accept as a Scriptural teaching. John Piper’s Desiring God Ministries has argued that there is no inconsistency in believing that children are a gift from God, and yet regulating the “timing and number” of those children: “Just because something is a gift from the Lord does not mean that it is wrong to be a steward of when or whether you will come into possession of it.”
But for the Duggars, stewardship of these gifts from God doesn’t include such matters as Piper contemplates. Their idea of stewardship is post-conception.
And we should be okay with that.
Despite all the critical noise in the media and on the internet (which, arguably, they brought upon themselves with their television show), the Duggars seem to have been successful by every measure in their endeavors to raise all their little gifts from God. It is a commitment and lifestyle that they have chosen. While one might not agree with a number of Quiverfull movement views, the Duggars and others like them need to be defended from all the spurious attacks that are made against them. They get hammered on because they take the Bible literally. They get scorned because they believe in creationism. They are the subjected to these stupid environmental/resource criticisms that are utter Leftist drivel.
Sound familiar?
Moreover, the current trajectory of our society would suggest that somewhere down the line we will have government legislation that limits the number of children families can have. Recently Diane Francis wrote in the Financial Post : “The “inconvenient truth” overhanging the UN’s Copenhagen conference is not that the climate is warming or cooling, but that humans are overpopulating the world. A planetary law, such as China’s one-child policy, is the only way to reverse the disastrous global birthrate currently, which is one million births every four days.”
Perhaps you had a small family by choice. Perhaps you think that the Duggars have some far-fetched ideas. Whatever the case, you might want to consider supporting the Duggars’ right to live and procreate as they please.
As I see it, the Christian life must be comprised of three concentric circles, each of which must be kept in its proper place. In the outer circle must be the correct theological position, true biblical orthodoxy and the purity of the visible church. This is first, but if that is all there is, it is just one more seedbed for spiritual pride.
In the second circle must be good intellectual training and comprehension of our own generation. But having only this leads to intellectualism and again provides a seedbed for pride.
In the inner circle must be the humble heart — the love of God, the devotional attitude toward God. There must be the daily practice of the reality of the God whom we know is there. . . .
When each of these three circles is established in its proper place, there will be tongues of fire and the power of the Holy Spirit. Then, at the end of my life, when I look back over my work since I have been a Christian, I will see that I have not wasted my life. The Lord’s work must be done in the Lord’s way.
Schaeffer is right, without humility and a love for God being at the center – the inner circle, all that our right belief and education will lead to is pride and self-righteousness. I think back at how many times I have done the Lord’s work, but haven’t done it in His way. When I’ve been proud. When I’ve done the work out of duty. Those of us involved in ministry whether it is volunteer or vocational, should never forget that it is His work, not our own.
We don’t honor Him when we do the work, but are spiritually or intellectually proud. We don’t glorify Him if we do the work out of duty, but not love. The two greatest commands is that we love God which is our devotional life, and also, to love others which requires humility. If we keep that at the center then we can be assured that we haven’t wasted our life.
Yesterday MSNBC released emails that Todd Palin exchanged with state officials (including his wife, Governor Sarah Palin) that were requested from the State of Alaska under their public records law. The claim the emails reveal a “powerful first dude.” Bill Dedman writes:
Nearly 3,000 pages of e-mails that Todd Palin exchanged with state officials, which were released to msnbc.com and NBC News by the state of Alaska under its public records law, draw a picture of a Palin administration where the governor’s husband got involved in a judicial appointment, monitored contract negotiations with public employee unions, received background checks on a corporate CEO, added his approval or disapproval to state board appointments and passed financial information marked "confidential" from his oil company employer to a state attorney.
Though MSNBC spins this in a negative light, I have to say there’s nothing there. They prove nothing other than he was an informal unpaid advisor to Governor Palin, and at time some of her staff. Just in reading the emails they refer to:
His receiving background check on a corporate CEO was a search of public records that really any resident of Alaska could be privy to.
His “getting involved in a judicial appointment” was him following up on questions that he was receiving himself.
His “monitoring contract negotiations with public employee unions” was basically him saying “good job,” perhaps his involvement was sought since he was a union member himself?
Him “adding his approval or disapproval to state board appointments” was simply him being asked for names of people he may know. How exactly is that inappropriate? He wasn’t making appointments or even vetoing, but simply asked to supply the names of people who may be a good fit.
Regarding the confidential financial information, the Palin’s attorney, Thomas Van Flein in a statement responded to that charge:
The article posits that Todd Palin "passed financial information marked ‘confidential’ from his oil company employer to a state attorney." The author clearly implies that Todd Palin, who was not a member of the British Petroleum management team, obtained secret "financial" information and surreptitiously gave it to a State assistant attorney general. The true facts are as follows: Todd Palin received an email from a third party (an email that was apparently making the rounds in Alaska) and he forwarded that to a state attorney on August 29, 2007. But the information in the email itself was dated February 19, 2004–three and half years earlier–and the information addressed safety performance for 2003 and overall productivity. Of course, as a highly regulated producer in Alaska, this is largely the same information provided to state regulatory agencies, taxing authorities, and even publicly disclosed to its shareholders. See BP Annual Report and Accounts 2003 & http://www.bp.com/extendedsectiongenericarticle.do?categoryId=9021605&contentId=7040949
The latter part of the email referred to performance data for 2005 again analyzing production, costs and safety. So there are two distinct errors in the article: (1) the email itself was circulating in Alaska and was simply forwarded to Todd by a third party, it was not an email that was sent by BP to Todd Palin wherein he was told it was "confidential" and (2) the type of information within the email was years old and all, if not most, was a matter of public record under the tight regulatory strictures BP operates under and its release of data to shareholders, securities regulators, the department of Revenue, and the state oil and gas commission, among others.
The bottom line is that this story reveals nothing new.
I’m curious if MSNBC requested to receive to correspondence that Michelle Obama received or sent (not that I would want them to) what would they find? How about Hillary Clinton when she was the First Lady? We know that she was heavily involved in White House policy, probably even more so that Vice President Al Gore. If you were to look at emails from any Governor’s spouse you would probably find much of the same.
This is MSNBC trying to dredge up a story when there is no story there. Also, requesting emails exchanged between Governor Palin and her husband is just plain creepy.
But that is MSNBC for you. Is there any wonder why their ratings are in the tank?
Last week Mary Selby posted a great review of the movie “To Save a Life,” addressing the terrible tragedy of teen suicide. Shortly after reading her article, I learned of a young woman in Massachusetts who had taken her own life. Though we may never know all the reasons for her grievous decision what is undisputed is that Phoebe Prince was suffering torment on a daily basis from relentless bullying.
Some miscellaneous links and items of interest around the ‘net for your weekend.
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